Poet & Scribe’s Co-founder: Sandra Ibañez

Sandra has spent 10+ years supporting & leading product teams to collaboratively build high quality software products for partners & hotel guests around the world. Her multidisciplinary career spans multiple countries, industries, departments, technologies, teams, and roles.

Sandra’s introduction to the tech industry began in 2010 in her first role at Booking.com in Barcelona, Spain. She provided technical support to accommodation partners and helped them set-up their properties in the website. Quickly growing in her role, she moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands in 2013 to provide technical & operational support to the 150+ local offices around the world. Her interest in creating quality software products deepened as her responsibilities continued to grow & expand, connecting & communicating between the Partner Department & Tech Department.

…she moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands in 2013 to provide technical & operational support to the 150+ local offices around the world.

In 2015, she was promoted & moved to the Tech Department as the first Software Quality Specialist in the business to business — B2B — area. She supported a full department of ~20 teams, comprised of product owners, developers, and designers. Ultimately, to improve the quality of the products she supported, she created test procedures, comprehensive test plans, and test cases for the many products, as well as offering a user friendly interface.

In 2018, Sandra was promoted to Senior Software Quality Specialist. After years of organizing trainings, leading workshops, sharing her knowledge on software quality testing, mentoring others across the business, a constant advocate for quality products, Sandra’s business impact & skill were formally recognized. She approached — and continues to approach — quality from a holistic perspective, understanding the best outcome for the business and end-users with quality integrated into the life cycle of product development.

Approaching quality from a holistic perspective, considering the best outcome for the business and end users.

A month after her promotion, Sandra was promoted to Tech Team Leader, with continued responsibilities as Senior Crafts-person. She began managing product engineering & development teams of 6–10 people, spanning designers, developers, and data scientists. She guided & coached them through different stages of the product development life cycle to become high performing teams. Some methods — not all — were implementing agile processes, setting objectives & milestones, overviewing the team’s roadmap, aligning team goals with business & department objectives.

As a manager & team leader, her focus wasn’t just on the team as a group, but also on each individual. She worked with each team member to ensure they were clear on their personal goals, understood how they contributed to the bigger picture, continued personal & professional development, were mentally healthy & supported at work. Her support, guidance, and coaching led to successful promotions to Senior, Principal, and Team Lead roles.

To see her full work history, read & connect with Sandra on LinkedIn

Sandra holds a Masters in Hotel Management and Bachelors in Hospitality from Escuela Universitaria de Hosteleria y Turismo in Spain. Part of her studies were to experience all departments: dining, housekeeping front desk, finances, and management.